Redford Theater Christmas Layout- 2014 Edition

A very theatrical layout and video presentation!

 

Thanks for taking the time to produce this fine video and sharing it with us.

Thanks guys.

The lights are mostly LED christmas light strings.  I used warm white around the edge and used cool white for the center town area (mostly because that's what was on hand).  The second level just has a string of colored incandescent Christmas lights.

Eventually Id like to switch completely to LEDs to reduce the amount of heat under the snow blanket, but I've never had it be an issue in the past 4 years I've built the layout

Most awesome Jake and Mark, Love all the action and illumination. Maybe there aren't of great movies I'd pay to see right now but the train layout would definately make up for the cost of admission.

Great Job, very sure it brings smiles to the guests!

I received word last week that the display will probably be staying up for another month due to some rental events that requested it be present.  Due to that, my friend Mark and I went to the theater today to do a through inspection and general maintenance to ensure that the layout stays operational until the time it is taken apart.  Overall things looked good.  One wire got tugged out of a terminal block, but was easily repaired.  Issues with locomotives were also noted, but not enough to prevent operation.  They will be repaired for next year.  Mark's new Lionel Vision Big Boy also made some runs on the display today.  What a beautiful looking, sounding and operating model (I'm sure he'll post his video footage)

 

Anyway, here are some scenes from this years display.

 

 

We had a successful day, Maintenance was done, as Jake mentioned, We ran trains, I got to try out my Vision Line Big Boy (4014) that i picked up yesterday as well as my new Southern Pacific F7 A-A Legacy set.  This is the first time both items had been out of the box.  The big boy was absolutely flawless.... blew me away and that is hard with the bar set high from the quality of the Vision Challenger!!!  Unfortunately the F7 Units will need to either be returned to where i purchased them, or sent to Lionel... The Powered unit would not take any programming, Odyssey would not work, it only responded to Eng #1, and something was rattling around on the inside.....

 

Videos? 

 

here you go!  Please view bigger (On YouTube), and in High Definition (Sound up helps too)

 

 

 

Jake,

Nice that you have an encore. The bad news is continual work instead of packing up. Sounds like the theatre employees really like trains now.

The theater employees always seem to enjoy the trains.  We're an all volunteer organization so some of them even come to help out with building the display.

It's not so much work to keep it operable.  I've cleaned the track, pickups and wheels a few times while the layout has operated and also apply oil to axles where needed.  If anything, I don't have any desire to dismantle it due to the over engineering we put into it.

I bet you wish you could leave it up year-round to have a large layout with large curves to run whatever you want.  Wouldn't that be nice?  With the freedom to come and go as you want all year to run trains. 

 

Nice video of the BB.  I'll never get tired of that whistle.  Good job guys on another good year.  Think about the train purchases that layout inspired this year.  I'm sure there was more than one kid who fell in love with the layout and the parents went home and bought a set.

It would be great if I could leave it up all year, even if it did mean covering it up in the off season.  Unfortunately I live 30 miles away, so it's not overly convenient to just go and run trains.  We do occasionally though.

I'm sure we caught the eye of many kids and adults.  As previously mentioned, several thousand people have already viewed the display